Authors: Carol Rose
"I'm game. This could be fun," he agreed amiably, perversity making him enjoy the flustered look on her face.
Julia cleared her throat and moved to check his pelvis level again. He felt his pulse jump when her fingers accidentally grazed the bare skin above the waist of his jeans. Too bad his hormones didn't share his reservations about involvement with Julia.
Crossing his arms across his chest in a position like a corpse in an old horror movie, Julia rolled Caleb's far shoulder forward to slip her hand beneath him in the hollow between his shoulder blade and his spine. The position brought them face-to-face, her breasts crushed against his crossed arms. Caleb could feel the smile growing on his face.
Taking a deep breath, she leaned over, her upper body pressing against his for leverage, and rolled his torso back against her hand. Caleb felt another series of pops.
"Ummm," Caleb murmured as she leaned over him to slip her hand from under
his shoulder. "Feels wonderful.
"
Julia straightened again, her color high. "Uh, if you'd turn around so that the top of your head is at the edge of the flooring, I can work a little on your neck."
"Whatever you say, Doc." He shifted around.
"We'll just do a little rotation and maybe a stretch. I don't w
ant to overwork the sore spot."
Caleb noticed that the more she touched him,
the more professional she got.
It was a familiar tactic. One of his first professors had said it best. "Never let your patients get to you. Remember, you're not just another human being. You're a doctor." It had seemed like reasonable advice until the day Caleb had discovered his human propensity for error couldn't be eradicated by all the medical knowledge in the world.
Julia shifted her hands and, easing his head slowly one way and then back the other, angled his chin slightly. She turned his neck to one side with a sudden, thrusting movement tha
t resulted in a string of pops.
"Whoa! What was that?"
''I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, but doing it slowly doesn't achieve the same release." Julia smiled at him brightly. She slid her fingers down the back of his neck in slow, massaging motions-
-
a touch which seemed seductively at variance to the studious way she avoided his gaze.
"It sounded a little like radioactive breakfast cereal," Caleb commented with amusement. The more tense she became, the better he felt. Maybe a brief fling wasn't such a bad idea.
"Yep. Snap, crackle, pop." Julia settled his head back down and stepped back
. "There. That ought to do it."
Caleb sat up, moving his neck experimentally.
"Damn. That's amazing. It's a little sore but nothing like before."
"You're welcome."
"It really feels terrific." His eyes slid over her. "I'm going to have to reconsider my prejudices about chiropractic."
"Osteopathy," she corrected him dryly.
"Yeah, whatever," Caleb agreed, knowing the difference but unable to stop himself from deliberately annoying her.
''I'm glad I could get it to release," Julia offered professionally. "Sometimes muscles are very stubborn. The soreness should be gone by tomorrow."
Her voice was so stiff that Caleb wouldn't have been surprised if she'd given him a prescription and shook his hand.
Instead, she stepped up onto the subflooring and walked briskly back to
where they'd left off working.
Rolling easily to his feet, Caleb reached down for his nail pouch and glanced reflectively at Julia's retreating back. Aside from his distrust of osteopathy, bred into him through ten years of higher education, he could see real disadvantages to this kind of physical therapy. While it certainly released muscle spasms, it tended to create a few other restrictions in his body. Those few seconds of Julia 's soft body pressed against his sent his already unruly imagination running wild. His lower body ached with need.
Thank the Lord for nail pouches. Caleb tied the strings around his waist. Her fragrance still clung to his skin and the softness of her breasts crushed against his chest lingered with him. He wondered if her retreat was in response to his arousal
-
-which would have been obvious if her eyes had strayed below his waist-
-
or if her own feelings scared the hell out of her.
His mind stopped abruptly there. Regardless of her soft body and the sweetness of her scent, he didn't want Julia to have any feelings where he was concerned. Sexual attraction was one thing; feelings were entirely different.
Emotion brought entanglement and responsibility. He'd already proved his unfitness for that particular kind of involvement.
He dropped down between the joists and picked up his hammer, aware that Julia avoided his eyes as she turned to get another plank. She was obviously embarrassed. Her cheeks were faintly pink as she raked a hand through her blond hair, waiting for him to nail the board.
Caleb hefted the hammer, feeling an unexpected nudge of tenderness. So sassy, independent Julia was bothered by those few minutes of physical contact with him. How gratifying.
Still, there wasn't a whisper of a chance that the lady needed to be afraid of him. He might be more than taken with her undeniable physical charms, but he had no intention of interfering with her life. The roads he'd traveled in the last two years were too rough to retrace.
Yet, there were moments when he really missed the life he'd left behind. It took less than a fraction of a second to call to mind the smell of alcohol and antiseptic, the feel of hard tile beneath his feet at three o'clock in the morning. How many months had it taken to get used to hearing his name being paged? When had he gotten used to the pressure and beg
un to wear it like an old coat?
It did no good to say he'd toughened up to deal with the stress. Some things were unforgivable.
The familiar acid settled in Caleb's stomach, and guilt clenched in his heart like coiled steel. The feeling was as familiar as the hammer in his hand. He almost welcomed it. There were some things it didn't pay to forget.
He shifted a board into position. "Did you always want to be a doctor?"
"Always." Her voice held a faintly passionate note. "But I didn't really consider pursuing it until after high school."
"Lot of time involved in getting to be a doctor." Caleb fished for the last nail in the pouch and drove it home, knowing he should stay clear of this subject.
"Time?"
"Yeah. You know-
-
years of your life devoted to learning to heal the sick?"
"You don't think much of the medical profession, do you?" she questioned evenly.
Caleb dumped another handful of nails in the pouch, avoiding her question as his gaze skimmed up her. People were drawn to the practice of medicine for two reasons: money and power. He had to admit to being addicted to both during his tenure.
But most physicians cloaked the bare truth of their motivation with well-meant platitudes about helping mankind. It made Caleb want to puke.
He'd gotten too cocky, too confident, too convinced of his own infallibility, dismissing Erin's complaints as the whining of a clingy woman.
And she'd ended up dying.
"I guess the payoff for all that time in training isn't bad," he said, "if you get into a big practice. Good money for six hours a day."
"Have you heard of health maintenance organizations?" she asked dryly. "Nowadays, family practice means twelve hour days and reams of paperwork. I fall into bed some nights."
Caleb stepped out of the floor frame and hoisted a stack of boards. Returning, he dumped the pile and picked up his hammer.
Despite his vagabond existence the last few years, he'd heard that the business of medicine had changed. It was all his father talked about, but Caleb had noticed no change in the man's lifestyle so he assumed that the money still flowed freely.
"You must be building the house now because financing is cheap,"
he said, shifting the subject.
"No." She looked up at him. "My father is career military. We moved almost every year of my life. My sister Eileen and I got tired of packing and unpacking. I want a home."
"A military brat," he mused. "It probably helped you handle medical school, being accustomed to taking orders."
She smiled faintly. "Very accustomed. At least for the first eighteen years of my life. The only trouble is when you're always told what to do, it makes you doubt your
self. If it hadn't been for...
someone who believed in me, I would never have followed my dream of being a doctor. "
In the silence, evening sounds rose between them. The still-hot rays of the late afternoon
sun slanted into the clearing.
The house frame that was rising around him, solid in its tradition of home and hearth, was evidence of her longing to stay in one place, and form lasting connections and ties to other people.
Responsibility to other people. Caleb suppressed a shudder.
They worked the next half hour with little comment, Julia laying the boards for him to nail. She worked steadily, keeping his pace without complaint. The pale silk of her dress was dusty as it clung damply to her back and Caleb counted at least four runs in her hose. There was a slight stiffness to her movement as she reached for the next plank.
Caleb knew better than most how little a doctor's life prepared one for hard physical work. His first month in construction had built muscles that screamed in protest at the end of every day. He slammed in another nail.
It struck him as ironic that in another lifetime he'd have gone after Julia so fast she wouldn't have had time to think, much less run. Amazing how three years and one unalterable mistake could change everything.
A
s they worked side by side, the broiling sun sank steadily below the line of scrubby hackberry trees that rimmed the far line of the lot. The dusky light hummed with evening locusts, filling the silence between them.
Julia straightened, stretching her arms up to lift the weight of her hair off her neck. A whisper of evening breeze brushed her nape. "Ummmm. It's so warm."
Caleb rested his hammer on the beam. “I probably have some string around somewhere if you want to tie it up." His gaze rested on the tumble of curls she held off her neck.
"No, thanks. It's not that bad, but I definitely need a haircut. I've been meaning to schedule one for a month now."
"You normally wear it shorter?" He bent again for nails.
"Yes," Julia answered, absently straightening the next board. "I don't know. It's easier. Practical."
"More professional," Caleb commented, feeling the slight curl of his lip. He'd met women like her before, consumed by the need to advance in their career.
"Professional?"
"You wouldn't want to be too seductive and sexy, or your colleagues and patients won't take you seriously."
Julia laughed. "It's not like that. A physician is asexual. And I
'm not exactly a
femme fatale.”
She looked down at her slender body, encased in dusty lavender silk. "Just a shade too boyish to cause riots."
Julia felt Caleb's scrutiny on her. Glancing up, her gaze tangled with his.
He looked at her, long and slow. His eyes, dark and unreadable, seemed to brush over her entire body and suddenly the hush of evening sounded loud in Julia's ears.
Caleb laid his hammer down deliberately and closed the distance between them, stopping inches from her. Too close.
Julia's brain signaled her legs to step back, but she couldn't move. He seemed to loom over her, powerful in his maleness. The air vibrated around them.
"Sorry, petunia. You couldn't be more wrong." Gently, his fingers sifted through the damp wisps behind her ear.
"What do you mean?" Her words sounded strange to her ears.
"You don't see yourself the way I do."
"Oh?" Her voice felt frozen in her throat while the rest of her b
ody heated up. He was so close.
"I almost don't know where to start," he whispered. "Your hair is love
ly, first of all. Kind of a mix...
of moonlight and dawn."
Julia stared up at him, unwillingly transfixed. His eyes were cool, but his voice rolled over her low and soft. A tremor shivered through her, both of fear and anticipation. And that flicker of eagerness scared her most. She had to pull away, to put distance between them
-
-but she didn't.
With a callused thumb, Caleb tested the fragility of her jaw before brushing softly over her bottom lip. "You're anything but boyish. Not with skin like that. Softer than a newborn baby."
She still didn't move as his fingers brushed over the wing of her eyebrow, the curve of her ear and down to the pulse beating in her throat. His words sounded odd in her ears, as if he were touching her but describing someone else entirely.
"Don't," she whispered.
He gazed down at her, unheeding. "And your eyes-
-
you've got some secrets you're not tellin
g. Wish I knew what they were."